Recent BBC News item about Invalid ticket purchase with a Railcard

[Willie Bee]

I've just seen an article on BBC about a chap from Glossop who bought an invalid ticket.

Every day, I see articles on this forum about similar incidents .. I was just wondering why his case is national news.

Surely it is the responsibility of the railcard user to know all the regulations etc about their use before buying a ticket

 

[mikeg]

I've just seen an article on BBC about a chap from Glossop who bought an invalid ticket.

Every day, I see articles on this forum about similar incidents .. I was just wondering why his case is national news.

Surely it is the responsibility of the railcard user to know all the regulations etc about their use before buying a ticket

Id agree but prosecution is rather heavy handed. I had a friend who did this about 12 years ago for the first and last time when he was chinged for an anytime single. The issue is passengers making an honest mistake and the a sledgehammer being used to crack the nut.

 

[Cuthbert]

I've just seen an article on BBC about a chap from Glossop who bought an invalid ticket.

Every day, I see articles on this forum about similar incidents .. I was just wondering why his case is national news.

Surely it is the responsibility of the railcard user to know all the regulations etc about their use before buying a ticket

This has already been typed about with people's opinions here

 

[ainsworth74]

You may want to have a read of this thread:

Northern and prosecutions for railcard use before 10am

I saw this thread on X/Twitter this morning https://x.com/jackfifield/status/1843648136268656806 by Jack Fifield, currently of the Bolton News, detailing instances of S5(3) RORA being used to prosecute people where they had used a railcard but whilst a minimum fare applied: Here we go, this...

www.railforums.co.uk

As well as this thread which is about the subject in general:

Excessing Railcard Discounted Tickets Used at an Invalid Time

Moderator Note = split from: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/reported-for-using-railcard-discount-before-10am.274823/#post-6964875 Presume NOT a Trainline price error. Was the appropriate sanction for just the excess (to the minimum fare) to have been charged? Or will this matter likely...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[Watershed]

The chap involved posted about his experience on Twitter* and this became very popular very quickly - his Tweet* received around 6 million views the last time I checked. Not quite sure why, as it's not like he had a huge following on Twitter*, but sometimes social media posts resonate.

Northern really don't seem to get how bad they look when they prosecute people over disputes for £1.90. It smacks of being "jobsworthy" and petty, let alone excessive.

*No, I'm not calling it X, or whatever that daft billionaire has renamed it to this week